An Armadillo Found in Ohio Is the Latest Surprise in the Armored Animals' Expansion North. Where Are They Now, and What's Driving Their Movement?

When an Ohio resident spotted a roadkill armadillo earlier this month, she posted the discovery on Facebook. Researchers noticed the finding and rushed to the site. In more southern states, this would have been an unfortunate but common occurrence.

In Ohio, it’s virtually unheard of. Over the past decades, scientists have tracked the armadillo’s steady northward crawl, from Texas to wider expanses of the South, Southeast and Midwest. Now, the recent discovery indicates that the mammals might soon gain a foothold in the Buckeye State.

But those were spotted far from the state’s border, so they had been written off as “hitchhikers” that might have stowed away on a vehicle, rather than making the journey on their own. This one, because it was found close to verified sightings in Kentucky and Indiana, is thought to have been the first recorded armadillo to naturally enter Ohio. Here’s what to know about the little armored creatures that may be coming soon to a state near you.

The Mexican long-nosed armadillo, formerly called the nine-banded armadillo, is the only one of the world’s 20 armadillo species that lives in North America. Once only found south of the United States, the animals moved across the Rio Grande in the mid-1800s, passing from Mexico into Texas. From there, they generally expanded north and east, reaching Louisiana by the 1920s and Kansas by the 1940s.

They have a unique ability to cross bodies of water. Capable of holding their breath for up to six minutes, armadillos might dig their claws into the streambed and walk underwater to ford narrow creeks. Wider rivers pose a different challenge, but the animals are still equipped to face them: They’ll inflate their intestines to raise their buoyancy, then paddle across.

They may also hitch rides on vehicles and cross bridges to expand to new areas. Early studies on the animal’s movements anticipated there would be limits to their survival, due to drier conditions out west and colder temperatures up north. Last year, a paper in the journal Diversity suggested the mammals had already pushed past the predicted limits.